Guiding catheters are instruments that allow a physician to access and cannulate vessels in a patient's heart for conducting various medical procedures, including venography and implantation of cardiac leads. Cannulating heart vessels requires navigating a small-diameter flexible guide catheter through the tortuous vasculature into a heart chamber, and then into a destination heart vessel. Once the destination heart vessel is reached, the catheter acts as a conduit for insertion of payloads, for example pacing leads, into the vessel.
Guiding catheter systems are often configured with a pre-shaped profile that is optimized for the intended vessel destination. One commonly accessed destination vessel for placement of cardiac pacing leads is the coronary sinus. Typically, access to the coronary sinus is gained through the left subclavian vein. The coronary sinus may also be accessed through the right subclavian vein.
There is a need for a lead delivery system and method to allow accurate and rapid lead implantation and anchoring in the coronary sinus or sub-branches of the coronary sinus.